


Sun's Out

by BlueThorne



Series: Best of All Possible Worlds [3]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dadgil Week (Devil May Cry), Everyone Is Alive, Family Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:22:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24859846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueThorne/pseuds/BlueThorne
Summary: Vergil hates the beach almost as much as his small son loves it.Set pre-Mockingbird but can be read standalone.
Series: Best of All Possible Worlds [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1207059
Comments: 18
Kudos: 80





	Sun's Out

**Author's Note:**

> Another Dadgil week fic, this one for the day 2 prompt "Sunshine."

Mom had given Nero one of her old sunhats, and he drowned in it. The brim sank down to the top of the pink sunglasses he’d insisted on for purchase. The generous layer of sunscreen covering him made his skin shimmer almost as much as the waves. 

“I can swim!” he insisted, but Father refused to let his feet touch the sand and kept him tucked under one arm instead. Nero dangled from his grasp with all the fury a seven-year-old could muster. 

Upon our arrival, Nero had unbuckled himself, tossed open the car door and taken off in a sprint toward the water. He kicked up sand behind him until I caught up and nabbed him around the middle. My heart was hammering so hard that he must have been able to feel it as I held him tight against my chest. “No!” he howled, his arms stretched out toward the waves. “I wanna swim!”

“Not by yourself!” Mom called. “That’s dangerous!”

He already had sunscreen on at that point, so the layer of grease on him made him tough to hold against his wrigging. Once I had him back near the car, I handed him off to Dad instead. 

No matter how mom tried to attempt to bribe Nero with popsicles, he refused to wear the arm floaties for swimming. “I'm not a baby. I swam by myself in the ocean all the time in Fortuna,” he huffed. “I don’t need them. They’re dumb.”

“Just have Father swim with him,” I said. The sooner he wore himself out the better. “Father can keep ahold of him the whole time, so he won’t get dragged away by any rogue waves.”

Mom made a face that suggested I should not have ever allowed Nero to hear that as an option, but Father lit up at the idea. “I will look after him! He will be very safe with me. You needn’t worry.”

It certainly cleared my worries, not just over Nero but also my concern that I would have to get into the water. Once Father had hauled the grumbling boy off to paddle around in the waves, I took up space on a towel laid out under an umbrella. Mom gave me peace there for about five minutes before she plopped down at my side and gave a low, annoyed hum. 

“I’m sure I know what you’re about to say,” I said. I watched from behind a pair of sunglasses as Nero try to convince Father to let them go out to the taller waves. 

“You should be the one out there with him,” she said just like I knew she would.

“He’ll have more fun if it’s Father. I’m not much for this… beach thing. You should have made Dante come if you wanted more entertainment for Nero.”

I hated the beach, hated the sand and the sun and the noise of other people. I also hated wearing short sleeves. Within minutes of standing outside, I could already feel my skin cooking. Though we healed too quickly for sunburns to appear, our skin was so pale that they tried to settle in regardless. 

Father didn’t appear bothered by it, looking just as odd in short sleeves as I imagined I did. He seemed to have forgotten to take his shirt off for the water, though. 

“It’s not about who’s entertaining Nero,” Mom sighed. “It’s about making memories and spending time with him.”

“I can spend time with him at home.” 

She pressed a hand to her forehead with a groan. “You’re so introverted that it honestly hurts. Look, I’ll let you get away with hiding under this umbrella, but once he’s out of the water for lunch, you’re sitting next to him.”

My nose wrinkled at the thought. He was bound to be covered in so much sand that he was going to be eating it along with his food. I knew I couldn’t make any reasonable case against sitting by him, though. In fact, other than the sand, I took no issue with having him nearby. He tended to keep to himself around me. On occasion, I’d catch him watching me from the corners of his eyes, but he rarely attempted conversation. He was usually too busy eating enough for a family of four to have time to talk. 

He was different in the water. From a distance, I could watch him dip down below the surface, and I'd follow Father’s gaze to where he’d resurface. He hadn’t been lying about his ability to swim. Seeing the contentment in his face made me regret all the times I’d stalled or refused this trip. I could count the times I’d seen him so happy on one hand. If it brought him joy, I could handle a few hours of hot sand and shorts. 

Mom spent most of her time at the wet expanse of sand where the waves would wash up over her legs. She watched Nero just like I did, calling out warnings when Sparda let him wander too far. When she stood and called them in for lunch, I was surprised to see Nero perk up and pull Father back toward land. It seemed even the water couldn’t keep him when he was hungry. 

Nero and I both helped Mom pack the lunch, so he was quick to shove his saltwater-drenched arms in the cooler and rifle around for his preferred sandwich. I could feel Mom’s eyes boring into me as I picked out my own food and tried to ignore the drops of water on every container. It was clear what she wanted. 

“Are you enjoying yourself, Nero?” I asked like I might ask a stranger about the weather. It was the best I could do. 

Nero paused with his sandwich stuck in his mouth. His gaze crept up toward me like a wild animal ready to bolt. Before I could go through with my consideration of sitting in the molten car for the rest of the day, he finally nodded. I would have been fine with the conversation ending there because I hated to see him look to me that way. It made my stomach twist, and I picked at the crust of my sandwich as I waited for my appetite to return. 

But I had to keep trying if I wanted a different reaction.

“You learned to swim in Fortuna,” I prompted. “They let you swim in the sea?”

“Yeah, sometimes. We’d all go out to the water, and a Knight would be there to look out for the water demons and stuff.” 

“Water demons?” I looked to Father, whose eyes were rolled up in thought. For once, the water had bits of his hair falling down in front of them instead of neatly slicked back. 

“It’s possible,” he said. “They usually remain quite deep in the ocean, but the strong demonic air around Fortuna could have drawn them in.”

“More likely that they just used them as a scare tactic to keep the kids from thinking about leaving,” Mom said.

Nero shrugged. “I never saw one, but there was these big seals. I loved them so much. They were sleepin’ on the docks all the time. I wanted to pet them, but I wasn’t allowed.”

“Probably for the best you don’t touch wild animals,” I said. 

“They let me catch the crabs though! I caught lots of them. I was the best. I always had the most crabs in my bucket when we got to the home because I was not scared!” Shoving the last bite of his sandwich in his mouth, he mimed their pincers with both hands as he chewed. 

“Didn't they pinch you?” I asked. 

“Yeah, sometimes. Can I have a popsicle now?”

“May I,” I corrected as Mom nodded to him, and Nero shot to the cooler to dig around again.

“Yeah okay, Father, I'll get you one too,” he said, and he returned with two popsicles. He shoved the purple one in my hand. “You can have grape because it’s gross.” 

“Thank you,” I said because he’d already taken the wrappers off, and I was quite stuck with it. It tasted as grossly artificial as it had when I was a child, but I couldn’t deny that I still enjoyed having it with the summer heat beating down around us. 

“What did you do with the crabs?” Mom asked while Nero took bites from his popsicle and chewed it in a way that was bizarre to watch. 

“Cooked ‘em. Well, I didn’t cook ‘em, but the older kids did, and then we had them for dinner, and it was the best, but I was always really crispy by then, so I also kinda didn’t like it much.”

“You were… crispy?” I echoed. 

“Yeah, like-” Holding the popsicle stick between his teeth, he smacked his right hand to his left arm. When his hand pulled away, a bright white handprint remained on his skin for an instant. “Like that but more.”

I took off my sunglasses. Mom did the same. She made a sound, a panicked hum. “No, I put so much sunscreen on you. How?” she hissed. 

“Oh, has he changed color?” Dad asked. “I am so blind out here with the sun like this. I can really only track everything by smell.”

“And you didn’t smell him cooking?” I asked, my fingers pinched between my brows. “I knew he wouldn’t have our healing to the same degree, but I didn’t think it would be this bad.”

Nero’s cheekbones, nose, and shoulders had the worst of it, but he looked like he’d been tinted in pink dye all over. If this was how he looked now, he was bound to be as red as a lobster soon enough. 

“It’s fine,” Nero said. “I am used to being crispy. And then I peel all my skin off like a big snake. That part’s fun.” 

I looked to Mom, who looked back at me with a wince. “Did you bring any of that aloe gel you use for your sunburns?” I asked. 

“Yeah, there’s some in the car.”

Nero was quite disappointed we didn’t stay much longer. Mom allowed him one last dip in the water before we each took a section of skin and smothered him in the strong-smelling blue gel. By the time we were settled in the car, the pale blue layer covered an angry red from his scalp to his toes. He sat wrapped in a towel and shivering despite how hot his skin was to the touch. Despite all that, he still asked when we could return to the beach. 

“Um, we’ll have to find a way to keep you from getting absolutely roasted by the sun first, sweetie,” Mom said with a sympathetic smile from the driver’s seat. “Do they make an SPF one-thousand or something?”

Seated at my side in the back, Nero sank into a pout. “I always get roasted, but it’s okay. I like swimming.”

I still hated seeing him so troubled. “We could go at night instead,” I offered. “Fewer people. No sunlight. Father could see better.”

“Hm, that could work,” Mom said, and Nero brightened like a light flicked on, his eyes wide with joy. 

It was nicer to see him happy up close rather than so far away. Another beach day couldn't be so bad.


End file.
